Things

Friday, April 30, 2010

The project I'm currently working on is about the banal things that make human life possible. The shortlist is based on personal experience and bias, but I venture that certain things are universal, like breathing, sleep, water and nourishment.
Sleep is researched more and more widely, and the results are shocking. Even acute sleep deprivation has an enormous averse effect on the human brain. I woke up to the negligence with which we treat the most important things, when I recreated an old performance on sleep in January. I started forming quite another perspective on the project, than what I initially had in Finland in 2001.
That night I had agreed on appearing in a small performance art event in Helsinki. I felt exhausted after the previous night's premiere. So I borrowed the idea of sleeping with the audience from a fellow student (she had hidden under a thick blanket and had audience members read books to her. As an explanation of this act of borrowing I'll offer that we all used to borrow ideas from each other all the time while studying. Isn't borrowing what is known as the biggest compliment?) I gathered the audience around me and spoke to them about sleeping, the rituals I employ when going to bed, and putting my son to bed, and about the childhood memories I have of being put to bed myself. During the process I fell asleep, and woke up a moment later in total silence with smiling people looking at me.
In January in the Subterranean Arthouse I had a rather different focus. I still fell asleep surrounded by the chamomile-tea-sipping audience - or rather was unable to fall asleep. But this time I became more and more conscious of the importance and simple necessity of sleeping, and the paradox of our way of life pushing sleep into the margin.
After the audience feedback I received, and the ensuing discussion, I decided I want to make a performance that addresses sleep, but also other every-day trivia that sustain life.
In addition I was seduced by the incomparable amount of shared, private and cultural implications these phenomena have. This is subject matter that lends itself easily to the way I like to work: creating shared experiences through physically sharing activities, time and location.

There are issues I need to address in this process, and my next blog will be my thoughts about the particularity versus universality of our basic needs.

"Life Sustenance" will premiere at the Subterranean Arthouse Friday June 4 at 8PM. Tickets through brownpapertickets.

Welcome to my blog!

I make dance performances, and I specifically target subjects that overlap with philosophical queries.

Live art is a meaningful way of researching, challenging, and creating world. We exist as bodily creatures. That is why our interactions in space and time are such an important vehicle of art and research.

On these pages I write my thoughts on choreography. In each project I'm involved in, new aspects of the choreographic process surface.

Organizing these ponderings in blogs will hopefully help me in my work, as well as open new views on the actual performances for the audience members.

Also, I will publish and report on new and past projects.

Photos: Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang

Cool People

Follow by Email

Minna Harri Experience Set mission statement

Bodie's experience is the basis for Minna Harri's choreographic work.

She is inspired by the ongoing shift of paradigm where scientists and thinkers are starting to understand intellect, emotion, and somatics as inseparable from each other. This has powerful consequences to colonized bodies.

Minna produces work with ensembles under the name Experience Set. This provides opportunities to come together in the creative process and challenges professional performers and creators from different disciplines, cultures and generations.

About Me

I am a choreographer currently based in San Francisco. I have lived in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and in my native Helsinki, Finland. In addition to studies in ballet, butoh, contemporary techniques, flamenco, tango, and singing, I have studied Performance and Theory in the Finnish Theater Academy. That is a multidisciplinary program that focused on live arts. I am thankful for the guidance by professor Annette Arlander, and Juha-Pekka Hotinen. I finished my studies with a MFA in 2006.
My past projects include choreographies, installations, performances, and essays.

Monday May 9 at University of San Francisco Minna Harri will talk about choreography and her project "Things" specifically. 6.15PM

June 10 & 11: "Like this" an evening of performance curated by Jesse Hewit at Garage, 975 Howard Street San Francisco. 8PM. This evening showcases three performance makers that utilize queer tactics: Maryam Rostami, Peter Max Lawrence and Minna Harri. Part of the National Queer Arts Festival. Minna Harri Experience Set will premiere TOXIC in its entirety. We worked hard since September 2010, don't miss this!

July 14, 15, 16 8PM: Minna Harri Experience Set Residency will culminate in a show @ Garage, 975 Howard Street San Francisco. The much expected next installment of the multi-year Things-project will be premiered. Please be welcome!

Participant in Spring SQUART (March 2010 - part of the winning team, yay!), Pride Squart (June 2010) and Halloween Squart (October 2010) at the Lab in San Francisco, organized by Laura Arrington and The Offcenter.

"Life Sustenance" June 4&5 2010 Subterranean Arthouse. An ensemble piece about the things in life that keep us humans alive.